This past week the public was invited to help out in digging up a location in a New Mexico desert where unsold copies of the the Atari E.T. game were buried. Microsoft’s Larry Hyrb was among the diggers. Things got very interesting when they dug up an Atari joystick in shambles. “A bit of evidence that we’re digging in the right place… ” the tweet reads, with accompanying picture. Then came the picture of the unearthed E.T. cart, confirming the urban legend to be true. Larry then posted another picture showing that E.T. wasn’t the only game buried in the landfill.

To newcomers, Retro Weekends is a personal recollection of all things retro, from games, to toys, to shows. Readers are encouraged to share their own memories in the comments below. So sit back, relax, and let the nostalgia flow.

After the crash of 1983, Nintendo appeared on the scene to revitalize the industry. Nintendo was the new kid on the block, and he had all the cool stuff. It had more defined graphics (compared to Atari and its ilk), a simple controller, and a boatload of cool games to play. But behind the scenes, a Nintendo factory worker-turned-head honcho was working on the next big thing for Nintendo, one that would not only bolster Nintendo’s library of games, but all be its back-up plan when their home consoles faltered. This weekend, we celebrate the Game Boy’s 25th Anniversary.

Last time Arc System Works teased something, we came away rather disappointed. This time though, it looks like they’ll be trying their hand at the BloodRayne franchise. Not much is known beyond what is shown on the teaser site itself. All we see is a countdown and some text above it. “She who fights with monsters might take care lest she thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you,” is written.

Keep your fingers crossed, ’cause we might be traversing Filgaia once again. Maybe. According to Game Jouhou, via Siliconera, SCE’s Kentaro Motomura, producer, recently spoke with Famitsu about fan demand and what games they would like to see revisited. Among the games requested is Wild ARMs, which hasn’t seen a new entry since the SRPG entry Wild ARMs XF on the PSP, and Wild ARMs 5 on the PS2. Until the issue of Famitsu is released, we won’t know for sure if a new entry will be made or not.

Welcome to Gateway Games. This is a series where I talk about games that either got me into a series or an entire genre. For a series, I had to have played a later game in the series lifespan. For Genre, any game of said genre would do (except if they were the genre starters).

Like many of us on both The Wired Fish and beyond, most of the gaming populace spent most of their gaming lives knowing next to nothing about Shin Megami Tensei (MegaTen or SMT for short). Sure we’ve played Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Phantasy Star, but nothing on the then Japan-Only SMT. The series had some of its entries make it over here, like Persona,Last Bible (under the name The Demon Slayer), Jack Bros., and DemiKids, but they were part of different sub-series of SMT, and all of them except DemiKids didn’t have the Shin Megami Tensei name in it. The first mainline game to make it over was Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, followed by the sub-seires Digital Devil Saga, and the series’ big break in the West, Persona 3. This is where we begin this first entry of Gateway Games.

Oh sweet, sweet irony. California State Senator, Leland Yee, was arrested on corruption, racketeering, and pretty much being in cahoots with organized crime. According to the affidavit, Yee was trying to get donations through bribery by showering praise or aiding in legislation and receiving monetary compensation. Doing so would net him more money for his campaign, going way beyond what the donation limit in California is for a public official. But it doesn’t stop there. Those who contributed in Yee’s deals were offered guns from an arms dealer in New Jersey that Yee was in contact with. He, along with 26 others, are accused of taking part in Yee’s schemes, which went beyond what is mentioned here.

I’ve been kicking this thought around from time to time, wondering to myself if the Brawler genre truly died. It was one of the grand staples of the 90s arcade scene with games like Final Fight, Streets of Rage, the D&D brawlers, and Double Dragon. In the jump to 3D, these games stuck around, but didn’t quite have the lasting appeal of its predecessors. Games like Die Hard Arcade and Fighting Force tried to fill the void, but it looked like the genre was on its way out. Or at least that’s that some in the media and community had proclaimed when less and less of these types of games were being released both at home and in the arcades. When games like The Warriors and Viewtiful Joe were released in the early and mid 2000s, some would even say that these games had revitalized the genre. But was there anything to really revive? Simple answer really: No. In fact, the genre was alive and well, it just took on a different name.

A user by the name of Gary (username WarioBrose) on Miiverse shared with the newly created Shantae community a code to enter the debug mode of Shantae. On the title screen, hit the following directions:

Left (×2), right (×8), left (×6), right (×2), left (×7), right (×6), left (×8).

Among the staff here at The Wired Fish, there’s no mistaking that I like me some old-school games from my youth. Much of what I bought this past Christmas was old PS1 games off the Playstation Store, chief among them being Wild ARMs 2. When talking it up on Retro Weekends, I reminisce about simpler times when all I had to worry about was going to school, doing my homework, and get further in that new game I got. Times have changed, with life moving at a faster pace now that I’m older, and info being fed to me faster than any magazine ever could back then. So when I happened upon Senran Kagura Burst, I came in expecting pretty much what I expected (and being all the more happy for it). But the bodacious package came with a neat little treat that I didn’t expect.

Going by his screen-name Jew Wario, Justin was known for making his video series “You Can Play This,” which had its beginnings on Doug Walker’s The Guy With The Glasses website (and later Blistered Thumbs and Retroware TV). The series was known it pleasantness compared to the other offerings at TGWTG, going for a more informative approach and lighthearted on the ease of playing import games. He showed viewers how easy it is to actually play imported imported Japanese games without having to know the language. While getting imports can be troublesome due all the hoops one has to jump through, probably one of the biggest barriers to playing Japanese imports (or any other for that matter) was the language. Even so, Justin broke down the mechanics of how each videogame he showcased worked, and rated each one on how much text is shown, if there is English used, how difficult or easy a game was, the game’s rarity, and the usual price it goes for should they be available.

Justin’s wife, Jenny, left a message on her facebook, one part talking about his fans and their reception of his videos. “He knew I loved him, HE KNEW ALL OF YOU LOVED HIM…” she writes. “You all made him so happy, every time he was recognized from his videos, it made him giddy with joy.”

The Pushmo community got a little bit of rebirth with the introduction of a Miiverse community for it last week. And thanks to Miiverse’s feature of letting users post screenshots of their gameplay, primary among the screenshots were QR codes of the puzzles others created. Since I had some, I posted a few. No no, not the NSFW ones, those babies stay here (I’ll get banned either way if I tried). I’m talking about the Metroid pushmo I made, which garnered over 20 Yeahs on Miiverse. After posting the Metroid, a little flame got re-lit in me to make more pushmos. I starting sharing some more of the clean pushmos I made, along with a few new ones. This eventually led to me making a bunch from Castlevania.

Ah ah. don’t read anything down here yet. Just play the video and listen. Listen to that music!

Since the revelation of David Wise coming back to compose for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, together with Kenji Yamato from the first DKCR game and the Metroid Prime series, we really haven’t heard much in the form of music. While we many, includingus, did play a bit of Tropical Freeze, they were in noisy venues. Not the best of places to really hear what anything has to offer in the form of music (unless the booths had headphones). But now we can hear the music better thanks to gameplay uploaded by Gamespot. First we have the savannah music, which sounds very much inspired by the likes of The Lion King.

Shin Megami Tensei IV‘s soundtrack. Damn what a soundtrack that was. From getting hyped by that Boss Theme, to shitting your pants fighting an Archangel, the music of SMT IV was intense and unrelenting. And now you can finally have it! Atlus has announced that the Shin Megami Tensei IVOriginal Soundtrack is set to release in Japan on February 26, 2014, courtesy of Mastard Records. The music will come in four CDs, complete with kickass cover art (pictured left).

If you haven’t gotten the game yet or missed out on the first print, you’re probably wondering what all the hubbub is about if we got the soundtrack already. What came with the game in both the U.S. and Japan wasn’t the soundtrack to the game, but instead an 8-song tribute CD containing updates of older mainline SMT music using modern instruments, save for Nocturne’s prelude which is simply a remix with SMT IV instrumentation. So anyone trying to look for cleaner SMT IV songs on Youtube had one helluva wait on their hands as the songs uploaded there were mainly gamerips — many of which are already compressed to accommodate for space in the game.

In a move that might surprise some Con goers, the organizers of San Diego Comic Con have decided to only sell single day passes this year. Usually the passes offered to regular visitors come with are the 4-Day (Thurs. – Sun.). Comparatively, NYCC usually offers 4-Days, 3-Days, and Single Days.

The convention started out small, focusing on just comics. San Diego Comic-Con is the first one, and most certainly the oldest (first was in 1970). This one is considered the prime convention of the Comic-Cons, having the descriptor of “International”. As the convention grew, more mediums beyond comics were showcased. Soon, Comic-Con became the center of geek pop culture, showcasing paraphernalia, comics, figurines, videogames, TV shows, and movies. With such growth came many more attendees, and as such less room to house them all. The show has since spread, with different organizers holding their own local Comic-Cons, which include Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas, etc. In New York, ReedPop holds New York Comic-Con.

Senran Kagura is getting extra Life and a bigger Hometowns as a sequel, Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson has been announced by Tamsoft. Starting off the confirmation of the sequel is a the addition of Co-op gameplay. While it wasn’t much of an issue in the original game, it’s odd for a brawler to not have it. So now it’s possible to have team ups like Asuka and Homura, or Haruka and Hibari. Local Co-op is a given, but it’s unknown if there will be online co-op as well. Alongside Co-op will be tag-team.